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REPORT AND ADDRESS 

"TO TIIEJR 



B V-' T II E 



C^-eral Cor.rniU.e of democratic WW, ToungMen 

OF THE . ^^^'^ '■• ; ■ •- ■"' 

CITY AND COUNTY OF NEW- YORK. 

For the Year 1841. 




Jr3 



ADDRESS 



TO THE DEMOCRATIC WHIG YOUNG IKEEir OP THE CITY AND 

COUNTY or NEVr-YORK: 

IN PRIMARY MEETINGS ASSEMBLED: 

Fellow-Citizens : — 

Called upon at the close of the term for which they were 
elected, lo resign to your hands the trust committed to their 
care, your Representatives in the General Committee of Democra- 
tic Whig Young Men, beg leave to address you. They seek not 
at this moment, to arouse or rally you to instant political action ; — 
they wish not to detain you with mere words of exhortation or 
encouragement ; — but they feel called upon by high considerations 
to lay before you, who have honoured them with your confidence, 
the course of policy which has guided them during the past year, 
and also to suggest certain considerations which appear to them of 
vital importance, towards a successful attempt in regaining that 
political ascendency, which through unlocked for treachery and 
consequent party distraction and apathy has been apparently lost 
to us. While they trust you will lend a willing ear to the ac- 
count of their stewardship, they also ask a favourable attention 
to the considerations which they deem so important to the accom- 
plishment of the end proposed. 

At the commencement of the present year, when we derived 
from you our authority to act, the political firmament above us was 
bright and clear. The sun had ushered in a day of political joy 
and gladness to the nation, — hardly a cloud obstructed its beauty, 
or its serenity. We fondly imagined that the long " winter of our 
discontent" had, at length, been " made glorious summer;" — and 
we had a right, to entertain such hopes : — the great Whig party 
of the nation had risen from its slumbers, and with a giant's 
strength, had lorn asunder the chains rivetted upon it. No matter 
for the present mental " darkness in high places," or the cavilling 
of official papers, when the fact is now stated, that self same 
Whig party had triumphantly elected the candidates that their con- 
Veation had placed before the nation for its suffrages ; and though 



we felt many a pang of deep regret, that unwise seniiments of 
political expediency had prevented the choice from falling on him 
who was more immediately present to our hearts, as the embodi- 
ment of our opinions, — the mirror of the principles of that great 
party, — yet we indulged in expectations of joy at the prospect of 
rallying around a Whig administration, — of listening to the words 
of patriotic wisdom that would fall from the lips of Harrison, — and 
of hailing with triumph the completion of those measures which 
our party had entrusted to the care, the eloquence, and the exer- 
tions of our consistent and truly patriotic friend, the statesman, 
not of the West alone, but of the Country. Our political 
opponents had been overthrown and routed. Nearly every 
state had unfurled, to the breeze, the Whig standard of opposi- 
tion to executive misrule and government corruption ; and while 
a nation rallied beneath the folds of that broad banner, the Loco 
Foco party were dismayed, conscious that their power had de- 
parted and that the sceptre had been wrested from their hands : 
they knew that they had no claim upon the country for purity of 
purpose or patriotic services ; and that when office, which they 
had turned into sinews of war and implements of tyranny, was 
beyond their controul, they would have no spell to call together 
the legions, which to that time had supported and sustained them 
in every conflict. They knew that if the Whigs should prove as po- 
litically provident as themselves, and their official leader as true as 
their own had been, the glory of the Van Buren dynasty had de- 
parted, and its day closed ; but still they maintained their organi- 
zation. Retentive of all the ill-gotten gains and offices they had 
once clutched — supplied with all the booty of the castle, whose 
bare and broken walls they were soon to deliver into other hands, 
they watched, with eager expectation, for the first false move of a 
Whig administration, or the first symptom of party discontent. 

Such was the position of the two great parties of the country, 
when your Committee first entered upon the discharge of their 
duties ; nor was that position altered when Harrison assumed the 
reins of goverment, and a Whig cabinet directed its departments. 
The duty of this Committee was rendered perfectly clear, both by 
the action of the people, and the expected policy of a Whig ad- 
ministration. They based their course upon the well-known 
principles they had ever advocated ; they hailed with joy the in- 
augural of the Chief Magistrate, and his conduct during his Presi- 



dency, as illustrative of the sinccrit}'- and patriotism of their parly. 
In his voluntarily yielding up that enormous executive power 
which Jackson had usurped, and Van Buren had consolidated ; — in 
setting limits to those prerogatives of royalty which his immmediate 
predecessors had gathered around the Presidential office, though 
at the sacrifice of republican simplicity ; — in surrendering to the 
legislative department of the government, the law-making power, 
reserving only to himself the execution of the laws ; — in offering to 
leave to the wisdom of a Whig Congress, "fresh from the people," 
the settlement of the financial difficuliies of the nation, free from 
the trammels of selfish considerations, or executive bias ; — in staying 
the tide of corruption, by commencing the work of the removal of 
a corrupt horde of Loco Foco office holders ; — above all in con- 
firming the pledge and carrying out the doctrine, that not only 
he, but the Vice President avowed previous to their election — of a 
ONE TERM AEMiNisTRATioN ; — ^and in thus devoting that adminis- 
tration to the good of his country, free from intrigues for a re-no- 
mination, or attempts to build up a third party upon the ruins of 
that which had brought him into power; — in all these things we 
acknowledged and praised the honest, patriotic and Whig practice 
of our new ruler. 

But over all this there came a change. Too deeply already 
is its history impressed upon the heart. In one short month the 
tongue, eloquent with patriotic truth, was silent ; the hand, which 
a country had raised for its rescue, was palsied ; a heart, which 
had ever beat for that country's good, was stilled ; the shout of joy 
and song of triumph which had risen from a redeemed people, the 
hurrying together of thousands to behold the scene of a nation's 
deliverance, was turned into the solemn dirge, and the funeral 
march. In common with yourselves we mourned, but still not as 
those without hope. We thought (alas ! for human sagacity) that 
we knew his successor; pledged, as he was, to the great Whig prin- 
ciples for which we had fought, and upon which Harrison's exam- 
ple and dying words had poured a light, far stronger than any emit- 
ted from ' burning effigies !' we hailed him as a Whig, the ardent 
friend, the enthusiastic supporter of Henry Clay, whose pride and 
glory it would be to complete the work already commenced. 

It is not our wish or design to trace the history of the past. 
Our object is simply to illustrate the difficulties of the position in 
whicli we were shortly placed, and the consequent change in its 



plans required from, or rather forced upon the Committee. The 
spring election had seen us again a defeated party in this Cit}' ; but 
the majority of twelve hundred against us, had been reduced to three 
hundred. The bone ard sinew of our strength, the working men, 
were never more true than on that trial. We were defeated solely 
by apathy among those who were afraid of a wet day, or a crowd 
of their fellow-citizens. Few, very few of such, belong to those 
we represent. The summer came and passed on, and saw our 
party in a state of distraction, produced by the apostacy of its offi- 
cial leader. — It is no time to liesitate in the expression of opinion, 
when that leader has voluntarily left the beaten track we had to- 
gether trodden ; and when his official organ declares that neither 
he nor it ever was " a Whig," and that the Whig party did not 
elect its candidates at the Presidential election. — The situation of 
that party was not, in our opuiion, dependent upon tlie action of 
the Whicrs in Consrress at the e.xtra session. Just so far as their 
designs were carried out, unimpeded by the turbulence and selfish- 
ness of degenerate partizans, or the abstractions of executive ca- 
price, so far was our party strength unimpaired. The gloom and 
darkness which had overspread thepolitical firmament, were trace- 
able to other causes. The President had cast off his allegiance to 
the party w^hich had selected him ; — had, through his official organ, 
proclaimed himself to be " above the influence of party prejudices, 
and party ties ;" — had endeavoured to build up for himself, in the 
Halls of Congress, and in the army of office-holders, a third party, 
which should recognize him as their Chief, and his re-election as 
their object ; — had reinstated Loco Focos who had been deprived 
of office ; and had refused to remove others who had been retain- 
ed, on the avowed ground that they might be his friends ; — had, 
under the stale pretence of consistency, abandoned opinions he had 
professed, a party he had been attached to, and projects he had him- 
self not only brought into existence, but to which he had given a bap- 
tismal name ; — and while wishing to appear a martyr to principles 
originating in conscience, was sacrificing a people and his own hon- 
our to scruples beginning and ending in self-interest. The will of 
one man triumphed over the expressed wishes of a nation, and 
the spirit of the constitution. With grief and shame we saw 
our own elected officer so dazzled with the glitter of presidential 
office, that he could not surrender the unjust acquisitions of his 
predecessors. We "saw power victorious over gratitude to a 



nation, and pledges to a party. The Whigs felt tliat their labour 
had been in vain ; — that, although they had subdued the enenny, 
they had been sorely wounded in the house of their friend. A 
Wliig Congress did all in their power to avert the blow ; day af- 
ter day they spent in vain negotiation to effect the end. A "Whig 
Cabinet, loving Rome more than Caesar, refused to countenance 
their Chief, and voluntarily sacrificed the allurements of office to 
preserve their honour untarnished, their fidelity to the party unim- 
paired. 

In their own humble sphere, your Committee laboured to be 
alike true. While, however, they knew that the people had rights, 
that to them, those in authority owed allegiance and gratitude, and 
that that people were Whig, yet they indulged in no recrimination 
for the past, but remembered that the President had been their 
own choice, and might yet return to his first love. They laboured 
zealously to remove the apathy prevalent among the party, and re- 
unite its distracted forces. 

But more than mere general action was required from your 
Representatives. On one most important point they have come di- 
rectly into collision with the present views of the Executive. We 
allude to the subject of removals from office. We repudiate the 
doctrine that "to the victors belong the spoils;" but when the people 
willed the elevation of William Henry Harrison and John Ty- 
ler, they did not mean that the work of reform should stop there. 
They did not think that corruption was confined to the White 
House, and the Executive Departments at Washington. They 
wished a thorough reformation in every branch of the public ser- 
vice. For twelve long years had the LocoFocos misruled the land. 
Led on by office-holders, grown rich with the "drippings of un- 
clean legislation''' and the spoils of office, they had reduced the 
States, the Union and the People, to the verge of bankruptcy, 
— had deranged every department of industry, — banished every 
Whig from the employment of the national administration, and had 
created a corrupt party despotism throughout the land. 

The people willed that there should be an end to this ; — while 
they entrusted the law-making power to a Whig Congress, and 
the administration of the government to a Whig President, they at 
the same time decreed, that they who had accomphshed all the 
evil, — who had ruled the spirits of misgovernment, — who had been 
^e " head and front of the offending," should themselves be strip- 



ped of power ; that they who had " sown the wind, should reap the 
whirlwind." They believed that the country could not be restored 
to prosperity while the workers of ruin remained protected in the 
enjoyment of their means of warfare ; — that the former banishment 
of our political friends from office had been unjust ; — that the places 
of those who had so persecuted them should be supplied by 'honest, 
capable, and faithful' Whigs. 

To this end we have exerted ourselves, although without the 
success which should have attended our efforts. An uncertainty 
of action, a selfishness of purpose, a wavering, doubtful policy, 
has so characterized the administration at Washington, as to have 
effected every branch of the public service. In justice to your- 
selves and your known opinions, a most decided course has been 
pursued in relation to those branches in our vicinity. Every means 
have been tried ; every exertion used. We have contended that 
our Revenue service and our post-office should not be instruments 
to be used against our party and our country ; — that while Loco 
Foco Common Councils were proscribing every Whig in office, — 
even aged watchmen, whose families depended for bread upon 
their exertions, and whose fidelity and honesty could not save even 
the hard earned pittance they received, — noisy brawling politicians, 
by name and by profession, should not be allowed, under a Whig 
administration, to retain the offices they had already so abused, 
much less to boast that the general government did not dare to 
remove them. 

The fault has not rested with your Committee, that so unwise 
and incongruous a spectacle should be presented. While, how- 
ever, we have thus struggled and contended, we have never passed 
the limits of perfect neutrality in relation to appointments to office. 
We have urged the removal of obnoxious Loco Foco office holders, 
and that their places should be supplied by Whigs ; but beyond 
that, as a Committee, we have never gone ; as a Committee, our 
influence has never been urged for or against any candidate or 
applicant for office. 

In relation to State appointments, the same opinions have been 
maintained, and with far greater success. The difficulties even 
here, at first, appeared to be insurmountable, but by patient, unwea- 
rying exertion and industry, the justice demanded was obtained. 
We, of course, refer to the subordinates in the various inspection 
offices controlled by the State administration. While upon this 



head, we would allude to two principal instances, where the right 
of the General Committees to interfere in the matter and to ask 
for a recognition of those principles, was set at defiance : — 
we refer to the Naval Office and the Tobacco Inspection ; — for a 
long time we endeavoured to avert the question, but failing to 
obtain our wishes in any other manner, we met the difficulty fully 
and fairly. The result was, as you are already aware, that your 
Committees succeeded in establishing the principle for which 
they had contended, and in obtaining the particular justice for which 
they had laboured. 

The two General Committees, in joint action, have, during the 
past year, introduced an alteration in the financial concerns of the 
party. We take to ourselves the credit of originating the reform. 
Without detailing the particulars of the plan which has been 
adopted, we deem it proper to state, that it has made us acquainted 
with the exact state of the resources of the parly, ensured all con- 
tributions reaching the hands of your delegated representatives, 
without being thrown away upon irresponsible cabals, and will have 
secured the prompt liquidation of every just claim against the Com- 
mittees. In short, the system has introduced order, economy, purity, 
safety and efficiency : the details will in due course be communi- 
cated to our successors in office. We take pride in being, perhaps 
with a single exception, the onl)?- General Committees that have 
terminated their existence unincumbered by debt. 

Soon after your Committee assembled, they became aware 
of a defect in their organization. But comparatively few among 
the members had served before in the same capacity. They found 
themselves at fault by reason of ignorance of the previous doings, 
of the plans and organization of the party. This was a serious incon- 
venience, especially in a year requiring so much and such constant 
attention to political duties as the past ; it was only remedied, and 
then but partially, after much effort and labour that would other- 
wise have been saved. 

Your Representatives think that a simple change of plan will 
remedy this defect ; thereby imparting a greater efficiency to the 
Committee itself, and saving at least two month's time in ihe 
' organization of the party. As it now is, that organization can 
never be completed by the Spring Election, as it requires until that 
time for the Committee fully to understand its duties and business. 
The defect arises from the fact thai the Committee annually dies. 



and a new Committee comes into existence, ignorant of all that its 
predecessors have done ; the obvious remedy consequently is to 
give a continued existence to that main branch of party organiza- 
tion. We therefore respectfully propose for your consideration and 
approval, that in future the General Committee of Democratic 
Whig Young Men, shall consist of six members from each Ward, 
three of them to go out of office every year, and three new mem- 
bers to be elected, annually, to supply the vacancies. This will 
effectually remedy the evil, give strength and energy to the party, 
and ensure a constant and perfect organization. 

For the details of this change, we propose that five members 
from each Ward, as usual, be elected this evening; that power be 
given, by you, to those five, (provided nine Wards shall agree to the 
change,) to elect a sixth ; that these six constitute the delegation 
from each Ward to the Committee for 1842; that three of these 
hold office for the coming year, and the other three for that and 
the ensuing one. That lots be drawn by the members to deter- 
mine this order of precedence ; and that in each future December 
three members be chosen to hold office for two years ; thus con- 
stituting the Committee on a somewhat similar plan to that of the 
Senate of this State, and of the United States. However compli- 
cated this arrangement may appear in recital, it is perfectly simple 
in practice, and cannot fail of producing the happy result of a con- 
tinuous and thoroughly efficient Committee. 

Your Committee have drawn up concurrent resolutions to be 
submitted to you in furtherance of this arrangement, and they ear- 
nestly recommend the plan proposed for your approbation and 
adoption. 

Your Committee would also urgently but respectfully suggest 
the propriety of ascertaining previous to their election, whether the 
Delegates to be selected as your Representatives in General Com- 
mittee, will punctually attend its meetings and faithfully discharge 
the responsible duties entrusted to them. It is a voluntary service ; 
— one attended with much toil and anxiety ; an active and a willing 
spirit only can make the labour light and the work successful. 

We have thus, fellow citizens, in further fulfillment of our 
duty, submitted to you, the difficulties of our position, the policy 
we have pursued, the opinions we hold, and a plan for future action. 
In the exercise of the responsible trust, which you committed to 



V 

our care, and which we now surrender lo your hands, we con- 
gratulate ourselves that we have but reflected your wishes and 
opinions ; and, if not in all things successfully, we have at least 
laboured zealously in behalf of that cause, for which we have before 
fought in darker limes than these ; that cause of right and truth, 
which, even though 

" crushed to earth, would rise again." 



In stating our views of national politics, we engage in no of- 
fensive war against the national administration. We are ever ready 
to award it all praise, where its line of conduct is drawn in accor- 
dance with Whig principles and Whig practice. We are alike 
ready and bold as freemen to censure, where it departs from 
pohtical truth and party fidelity. We care not about the mere de- 
tails of financial systems ; we do not expect that, on every point 
of policy there should be a periB^^t unison of sentiment between 
Congress and the Executive ; the nature of man " prone 
to err," — the characteristic independence of the Whig faith, alike 
forbid this ; But we had a right to expect, that the administra- 
tion OF John Tyler would have been a whig administration; 
— that it w^ould have been marked by the same wise policy which 
distinguished us and him when in opposition to the powers that 
were — a policy, which had made our party great and powerful ; 
— ^which had raised it from a small minority to a vast majority in 
the nation ; — and that at any rate, if it could not have followed that 
party in all it demanded, it should not have arrayed itself in an 
armed neutrality toward it, or sought for support elsewhere than 
from its ranks. 

Brought into power by Whig suffrages, to carry out Whig 
principles ; it should have been content to have lived with that 
party, and if necessary to have died with it. To quote the lan- 
guage of a distinguished statesman, even if we cannot refer to his 
example, it should have stood "by the side of the cradle in which 
its infancy was rocked ;" " it should have stretched forth its arm 
with whatever vigour it retained, over the friends who gathered 
round it;" and should have been ready to " fall, at last, if fall it must, 
amidst the proudest monuments of its own glory, and on the very 
spot of its origin." 

To you, Young Men of the Cminty of New York, is entrusted 
much. The honour of building up that party,— of Buslaining it when 



10 

friends despaired and enemies ridiculed the idea of its future 
greatness, mainly belongs to you. Let not present difficulties dis- 
may you. Energy, unity, and perseverance will save, their ab- 
sence will destroy every thing. Though some portion of the 
work of political reform be accomplished, yet much remains un- 
done. Above all, political justice is not yet satisfied — the 
Justice never forgotten, though often delayed by a free people. 
Republics may for a time prove ungrateful, but they remain not 
so always. 
The Statesman of the West, 

"Whose noble mind, unconscious of a fault, 
No fortune's frowns can bend, nor smiles exalt : 
Like the firm rock thac in mid ocean braves 
The war of whirlwinds, and the dash of waves ; 
Or like a tow'r, he Ufts his head on high 
And Fortune's arrows far below him fly." 

Kentucky's favourite son — the idol of our political homage, 
remains unrequited for all his zeal and labour, in amount unsurpass- 
ed by that of any statesman of our own or any other age or Country, 
except in the warm enthusiastic devotion of millions of his Country- 
men. And though " he has already done for himself what friends 
and fortune can do for no man, and has acquired what neither 
friends or foes can take away from him, — a fame which no man's 
censure can detract; though office could not add one cubit to his 
stature, or one chaplet to the wreath of gratitude that encircles 
his name ;" yet pohtical justice requires his elevation to the Pre- 
sidential Chair, and the calls of that justice will most assuredly not 
be made in vain. 

No eulogy on Henry Clay need be pronounced. It is pre- 
sent to the heart, — is responded to by the voice of a nation, From 
youth has he been in public service ; and scarcely a beneficial na- 
tional measure has been in successful progress, v^^ithout receiving 
his fostering care and guardianship, from the period when in the 
Speaker's Chair of the House of Representatives, his exertions 
rallied the country in support of Madison and the War, down to the 
present moment, when at the head of the Whig party, almost alone 
and single handed, he has contended against the virulence of party 
opposition, the lukewarmness of friends, and the armed neutrality 
of the Executive. Never once in all that time has he forgotten 
those cardinal truths of republicanism, which are his pride and 



boast: — never once has he forgotten the people and their majesty, 
— his party and iheir rightful expectations. If again we suffer him to 
be deprived of that greatest honour, which a free people can alone 
confer, (which is his due, if it can be so said of any man,) then in 
truth can we say of the official career of our party and the politi- 
tical prosperity of our country — " We sat by its cradle, we fol- 
lowed its hearse." 

But we will indulge in no such expectations ; more endeared 
to us than ever, we Avill cling around his name, but with far greater 
tenacity. Such is the feeling that alone can save us. Let us unite 
then on that gifted statesman — let us place him before the freemen 
of the country, as our candidate; — support him in season and out of 
season, with no wavering — no luke-warmness — no hesitation ; and 
the triumph, which will prevail when he is declared President, 
will be the triumph of every truly Republican heart throughout 
the land. 

Unanimously adopted and published, by order of the General Committee 
of Democratic Whig Young Men of the City and County of New York. 



BENJAMIN DRAKE, Chairman. 

William B. Marsh, > ^ ^ • 
Giles M. Hillyer, \ '^^c^^^«^^^^- 



Committee Room, National Hall, 

December 10, 1841. 



J. W. Harrison, Printer, 465 Pearl-Street, 







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